Freshly baked bread products have long been enjoyed by home consumers and restaurant patrons. Preparing pastries and bread products such as pizza crusts and rolls, however, requires ready supplies of perishable materials, skill, and most importantly, time. To minimize meal preparation times, home consumers have a need for preformed, frozen dough products which may be placed in the consumer's home oven and baked for consumption. Likewise, to reduce labor costs and order preparation times, restaurants and pizzerias have a need for preformed bread products, in particular pizza crusts, which will allow the rapid preparation of meals to order.
In the past, pizza crusts have been supplied to pizza makers and other users as prebaked, preformed frozen or refrigerated crusts, with the cheese and other toppings being added to the crust at the time of baking or processing for further sale. Pizza crusts of this sort were typically formed by a die-stamping or sheeting process. In one process, the crusts were baked within a retaining ring or platen, and then packaged. By partially or completely baking the product prior to removal from the baking pan the desired molded shape was preserved. A drawback of prebaked bread products is that the final article is twice-baked and does not retain the moist rich texture and taste of a freshly-baked product.
An attempt to preserve at least a semblance of freshness has been made by providing pizza crusts with a central portion which is unbaked and frozen. The unbaked preformed central portion when baked will rise a certain amount, and provides an improved texture and taste, although still short of that of a freshly baked dough.
Frozen dough products when placed in a consumer's oven may deform over the parallel bars of the oven rack and be subjected to uneven baking. However, baking on a solid tray or pan may restrict the escape of gases from the dough, and inhibit ideal baking conditions.
What is needed is a preformed dough product such as a pizza crust which may be shaped to a desired shape and delivered in frozen form to an end user for baking in an oven such that the product retains its shape and baking qualities.